


You go Through People and Places, You Hope the Engine Can Take It

by thought



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 16:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1716989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Texas has an inconvenient crush and an inconvenient roadtrip but enjoys both nonetheless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You go Through People and Places, You Hope the Engine Can Take It

They complete the mission successfully. Or rather, CT retrieves the information and Tex keeps her alive. Good job, everybody. Go team.

The planetary government notices the break-in before they can get to the extraction point, which is embarrassing for everyone involved but particularly for the Director, if the icy dressing-down they receive over the coms fifteen minutes after the leak is identified is anything to go by. Airspace over the entire province is declared a no-fly zone until the culprits have been apprehended.

CT says, "Culprits makes it sound like we stole the last piece of cake. I feel a little devalued." She’s got her datapad propped up against the salt and pepper shakers and has managed to wedge a plate of berry pie between it and an entire pot of coffee. The media screen over the cash desk continues flashing the morning news over aggressively cheery pop music.

Tex stirs another packet of sugar into her coffee. "Explain to me why nobody's figured out how to cloak the Pelicans yet. Living in the future is a disappointment, I want my money back."

CT tucks her hair behind her ear for the fifteenth time. "Do you actually want me to answer that?"

"Hey, if you actually know. Competent genius is kinda hot." Tex’s delivery is deadpan, which, hopefully, masks the truth of the statement.

CT licks crumbs off her upper lip. "Why Agent Texas. Are you flirting with me?"

"Finish your pie. We've got a long drive," Tex mutters, and fleas before she can humiliate herself further. Her coffee remains untouched on the table. Whatever, CT will probably drink it once she’s decimated the pot.

Earlier that morning they'd been standing under the overhang of a dingy parking garage, peering out through the rainy morning twilight at rows of rusting, low-quality vehicles lining the street, debating which one would be best to hotwire. Tex had wanted the red one. CT wanted the boxy little sports car with the vintage Star Wars stickers pealing off the back window.

"We'll need to take off our armour," CT had said. "They're not locking down ground traffic, but there's a limit to how stupid I'm willing to assume the authorities are at this point."

It was the first time CT'd seen Tex's face, let alone seen her out of armour entirely. Tex's army-trained pragmatism means she didn't hesitate to strip down, but there's a part of her that notices the little silver sparkles in CT's eyeliner and the way she talks about destabilizing governments like it's a thing she does before her morning coffee, and that part of Tex would rather not have the first time CT sees her out of armour be a graceless damp scramble in the back of a stolen sports car. She'd piled her armour in the back, tugged on the also-stolen jeans and hoody over the armour's undersuit, redid her ponytail. Switching places with CT the other woman's armour dripped damp rainwater down her back under the hood. “Also, I’ll need coffee. See if there’s a nav system while I change.”

“We should focus on getting to the extraction point.”

CT had laughed a little, and then slipped on the wet leather and almost kicked Texas in the head. “Motherfucker. Fifteen minutes to grab a coffee isn’t going to kill us. Besides, I need a wireless access point.”

Now Tex waits outside the diner, one foot kicked up against the damp brick wall, breathing in cigarette smoke and grease and actively not thinking about why CT would need an access point like she’s actively not thinking about the way her skin stretched over the sharp bone at her wrist every time she twisted her hand up to brush back her hair. The late morning clouds have settled in for the long haul, resignedly solid over the sun and dripping disconsolate spatters of rainwater just often enough to keep everything humid. Tex wonders when emergency ration packs stopped being included in standard field kits.

CT wanders outside after a few minutes and comes to lean up against the wall beside Tex. She's got a take-out cup of coffee in one hand and her datapad tucked up under her jacket. Tex slips a hand into her own pocket to wrap around the grip of the gun and thinks CT is still the more dangerous of the two.

"You didn't eat," CT says.

Tex shrugs one shoulder slightly, fabric snagging against the rough edges of the wall. "Not hungry."

"Mmhm." CT takes a sip of coffee. A drop of water rolls lazily down out of her hair and between her eyes. Tex wants to reach out a finger and flick it away. Instead she pushes off the wall and steals the keys out of CT's back pocket half way across the parking lot. CT shakes her head, but circles around to the passenger side.

"Pay attention to speed limits," she says, glancing ruefully at the mildewed blanket that's doing a poor job of covering the lumpy pile of their armour in the back. "Wouldn't want the authorities to recognize us as the totally legitimate UNSC representatives that we are."

It's Tex's turn to frown. "You think something's wrong?"

CT fastens her seatbelt. "Of course not, Texas. I think we're doing exactly what we're supposed to."

She's not stupid, but she's not smart like CT. Not the kind of smart that gets you killed. She starts the car and let's the conversation drop. The heater's broken, so the silence of the drive is chilly primarily in the literal sense. CT curls her legs under her, boots smearing mud against the side of the door. She's working on something on her datapad. Maybe decoding the files they retrieved. Maybe something else. Tex skims the speed limit and fiddles with the radio until she finds old Earth rock.

It's the sort of drive that she thinks she should enjoy-- no, that's not it. She does enjoy it. The car handles well, the music is familiar, the air is cool. She's still bored. CT blows steam off the top of her coffee and the window fogs up, condensation hazing out in patchy wisps over the faint reflection of her face. Her hair falls forward across her cheek and eye, obscuring her expression from Tex's quick glances. She wants to reach over and twist the strands around her fingers, just to find out how they feel.

They drive for hours over long-stretches of uniformly bland highway, like the wheels are spinning but they’re staying in place. Cars come out of the grey in brief flashes of motion and colour and vanish just as quickly. Rain splatters against the windshield and Tex loses a few alarming minutes to the hypnotic swing of the wipers. CT is silent beside her but for the click of typing and the occasional soft noises of sipping coffee. Tex drums her fingers against the steering wheel in time with the music just to remind herself that the car contains living beings.

Late on in the day they take a back road through a heavily wooded area, overhanging branches splashing water down on the roof of the car like gunshots. CT switches the radio to something without lyrics and with too much percussion, drum machines blending the waling instrumentals together so one song is indistinguishable from the next. She rolls down the window, letting in the rush of clean air, wiping away coffee and stale damp with wet earth and newly woken greenery.

"The car's been reported stolen," CT says. "Finally. I disabled the tracker before we left, but we should still be careful."

Careful means Tex keeps both hands on the wheel at ten and two while CT squirms around to reach in the back, coming up with a goddamn arsenal. Tex was carrying a lot when they landed, but CT was supposed to go in light and fast. She's not sure where the fuck the array of knives and guns came from, and it's a safer puzzle to focus on than the way CT's ribcage presses up against her upper arm, the way she braces a hand on Tex's shoulder each time she pulls something new into the front. She's so fucking tiny. Tex wants, in a distantly nebulous sort of way, to toss her jacket over a puddle or hold a door. CT is fucking terrifying, makes Tex feel simultaneously like a fumbling fifteen-year-old and a soldier pinned down behind enemy lines.

They drive for another hour and don't see anyone on the road. The canopy of trees makes it seem later than it really is. CT pulls the hood of her jacket up and hunkers down in her seat, disassembling and reassembling each gun methodically. She doesn’t roll up the window. Tex switches the music back to rock. CT immediately flips it back. Tex thinks that's the sort of thing that'd usually piss her off.

"I didn't even drink coffee before Freelancer," CT says out of nowhere. Tex glances automatically down at the long-abandoned paper cup in the cup holder, dregs of murky brown swirling in the bottom. "I didn't want to become one of those people who got dependant."

"What changed?"

"I met York."

Tex chuckles because she figures it's the proper response. She resists the urge, barely, to comment on the weather. CT doesn't look up from the guns.

"I--" Tex cuts herself off because she isn't really sure what to say. She wants to return the offer-- one random personal detail for another, chipping away at the edges of ambiguity, but she can't think of anything to say. She thinks, too, that familiarity breeds investment, an affection beyond the superficial. Thinks that to indulge such a connection with Connecticut could prove dangerous.

Tex has yet to click into place with her team-- doesn't know if The Director's insistence on separation and secrecy even allows for the possessive. It leaves her off-balance and unsettled, the lack of certainty, the way her back always feels exposed.

"We've got three vehicles in pursuit," CT says a few minutes later, glancing down at her datapad. "At our current speed they'll catch up with us before we reach the extraction point."

Tex huffs out a breath, rolls up the window. "I really hate this music," she says.

CT switches the station. "I've never been to a live concert. Was going to go, once, but I wound up getting a fever instead. I was sick for almost a month."

The road is still empty. Tex drives faster.


End file.
